To Find Sleep Again
by Kat-of-the-Streets
Summary: Robert is struggling with the aftermaths of the Spanish flu. One Shot.


AN: This short story just popped into my head yesterday while I was working and I wrote this down in one go last night. I'll try to update_ Unpredictable_ today as well, but I don't know whether I'll get to it because I am slightly struggling with that story on top of everything else. But maybe writing this helped, who knows :)

Be warned, this is rather angsty. But I am and always will be a Cobert shipper, so bear with me and read it until the end.

Let me know what you think.

Kat

* * *

He hates this place, he hates it like the plague, but something keeps drawing him here, so once again he finds himself at the cemetery looking at that hated headstone and the inscription that makes his stomach turn into a knot every time he sees it.

_Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham_

_1870-1919_

_Beloved daughter, mother, wife_

That is all it says because when he had to commission the stone, that was all that came to his mind. He now wishes he had come up with something more heartfelt, something that expressed how much Cora had meant to him, but at the time of her death their marriage had felt like an empty shell more than anything else. They had loved each other deeply for almost three decades but the war tore them apart and by the time that Cora had caught the Spanish flu and then succumbed to it a day later, their marriage had all but fallen apart. She had seen him kiss Jane and apparently that had made her want to die. "Isn't this better?" she asked him. "You can go on with Jane and forget about me." He had only stared at her and wishes to God he had said something in reply, had told her that he still loved her, but he had been too stunned. And so she had died, her last words to him being that he should forget about her and what is worse is that he can't even remember what the last words he said to her were, probably something among the lines of "I hope you'll get better soon", but he can't be sure.  
He had been drunk for a week after her death and on the day of her funeral he had drunk himself into such a stupor that he couldn't attend the service. His daughters fabricated some story about him being unable to leave his room, but he supposes that the whole village, maybe even all of England knows that he almost drank himself senseless because Jane and he effectively killed Cora. If Cora hadn't seen them, she would have fought harder, he is almost sure that Cora would have lived. For a while he had tried to push Jane away, not because he didn't like her anymore or because he thought it was wrong, but because every time he saw her, he saw Cora dying. But eventually, a few months after the funeral he had been too drunk to attend, he took Jane to bed and while it didn't felt the way it had always felt with Cora, it felt good and so they started an affair and because he was a decent man he married Jane two months later. Because she was his second wife and because Sybil had already married the chauffeur by then, he marrying the maid hadn't been too much of a scandal, although his mother hasn't talked to him since the day he announced his engagement. She had gotten up from the dining table, looked at him and said "Robert, Cora has been dead for seven months, you are just out of mourning. How could you do this to her? I thought you loved her." With that she had left, never to return to the Abbey again, she doesn't let him into her house and turns the other way when he sees her in the village. In fact he isn't sure whether she actually still lives at her house or whether she hasn't gone to live with one of his daughters. Edith married Anthony Strallan and his mother might be at Loxely, Sybil of course is in Dublin with Tom but he doubts that his mother is there. She could of course also be at Haxby, she hates Richard Carlisle but loves Mary. His daughters all still talk to him, Sybil has even visited once and true to who she is, true to what her mother would have done in a similar situation, she even tried to be nice to be Jane, but none of his daughters are too impressed by what he has done. Matthew only shook his head at him after the announcement, he and Lavinia are somewhere in London where Matthew now works as a barrister. Matthew sometimes still comes to the Abbey, he brought his son a few weeks ago, but the father-son relationship that he had with his heir has been destroyed. Isobel still tries to be nice, she keeps saying that it was his right to marry again, but every time they talk he can see in her eyes that she only says that to not contradict herself. All this is hard on him and makes his life difficult, but what makes it even more difficult is that he now regrets his marriage to Jane. He doesn't love her, he never did, all she ever was was a substitute for Cora's affection, an affection he is sure he could have won back had he only told Cora what he wanted. He only picked Jane as a substitute because she rather looked like Cora did when they were younger. He doesn't dislike Jane, she is nice and tries her best to fulfill her new role, but she fails miserably, both as a Countess and as his wife. The first he wouldn't mind if he really loved her, but he doesn't and she isn't a very good wife, at least not for him. She is too submissive, she always wants to please him, she never contradicts him, always agrees with him, never fights with him on or about anything. He is thankful beyond words that she hasn't become pregnant yet because he doesn't want another child. Freddie spends the school breaks at Downton and while he likes the boy, he has also realized that he is almost too old to deal with a 13 year old which has led him to think that he would certainly be far too old to deal with a baby. He knows that Jane wants a child and he can't stay away from her room every night, but so far, thankfully, nothing has come of it. He never sleeps in her room, he always leaves after a while and goes back to his own room, or that is what he tells Jane, because he spends more than half his nights in Cora's room. Jane of course got a different room and nothing in Cora's room has been changed, except for the bedding. He finds that he still sleeps best in the room he shared with the only woman he ever loved, loved for almost thirty years, even if he breaks down in tears every time he lies down in their old bed. But he thinks that that is what he deserves for what he has done.  
He feels a gentle hand placed on his shoulder and he knows that it is Jane who has come to take him home. "Robert," she says and her pronunciation of his name is all wrong, it is not how Cora would have said it. "Come home, please. Let's have lunch together. She is dead and there is nothing you can do about it." Jane doesn't even mind him still struggling with Cora's death two years later and that is something else that is driving him mad. Why doesn't she fight for him? Why does she always accept everything? But he goes home with her and has lunch with her and she tries to make conversation with him but he can't concentrate on what she is saying. When he and Cora were alone for lunch, they always talked easily, it had never been forced and they both enjoyed it immensely. Those lunches had been far and few between but they usually led to them going upstairs together and both of them being late for their afternoon appointments, but they never cared. He has lunch alone with Jane almost every day, all his girls and Matthew are gone after all, and he often goes upstairs afterward, but by himself, he tells Jane he needs to be alone for some part of the day and it isn't a lie. So today he again excuses himself and goes to his room. He waits until Jane has walked past his door and then he walks through the door that connects his room to Cora's and lies down on their bed. He knows it isn't possible, but he thinks it still smells like her and that makes him incredibly sad but also gives him some sort of comfort, it shows him that despite what Cora thought he would do, he hasn't forgotten about her. "Cora, my darling, I am so sorry," he murmurs and then cries himself to sleep.

She walks past the room during the afternoon and she hears her husband call out 'Cora' and by the tone of his voice she knows that he is dreaming again. Ever since the Spanish flu and the horrible events that followed, her husband hasn't been the same. She loves him and she wants to make him better but she doesn't know how to do that. She knows that he has nightmares every night, which is why he hardly ever spends a night with her, although she thinks that maybe sleeping next to her would keep the nightmares at bay. She talked to him about it once but he just shook his head and because she doesn't want to push him, she hasn't asked him about it again. He has recently taken to sleeping after lunch and it doesn't surprise her that he is tired midday because he hardly ever sleeps at night and when he sleeps he has nightmares and calls out for her, but doesn't let her help him. But it is the middle of the day now and if she can hear him shout in his dreams, so can the servants and the servants don't need to know about his nightmares.  
So she opens the door and sees him writhing on the bed and he keeps saying 'Cora I am so sorry' over and over again and it breaks her heart. She sits down next to him and gently strokes his cheek. "Robert, darling wake up." He is writhing so much now that he almost hits her with his arm and she has to pin his arm to the bed. She then leans forward and kisses his cheek. "Wake up, love, you are having another nightmare. Whatever you think is happening right now is not really happening. You are home and safe and in our room." It is what she used to say when he came back from that awful war in South Africa. He had dreamed of being shot at for months afterward but he usually woke up when she told him where he was and that he was safe. He calls out "Cora" again and she shakes him slightly. "I am here, darling, wake up." Because he still keeps on writhing and she isn't strong enough to keep him still, she calls out "Robert" a lot louder than would be necessary and he finally opens his eyes.

Someone wants him to wake up, but he doesn't want to be woken because in his dream it is Cora who wants to wake him and if he really wakes up, she will be gone again and he will be facing his real life demons again. So he tries to move out of the grip that is pinning him to the bed. But when he hears a woman saying "Robert" the exact way that Cora used to say it, he can't help but open his eyes. When he sees her face looking back at him her pale blue eyes full of concern and love, when realizes that the hand on his arm is hers, he grabs her and pulls her close to him so fast that she loses her balance falls against him and thereby pushes him back onto the bed. She frees her arms from his embrace and hovers over him. "Robert," she says to him, "what the bloody hell did you dream?" He starts to laugh and cry at the same time now, because he is so relieved that she is still there and her saying 'bloody hell' in her American accent just sounds so much like her, that he is sure that he isn't dreaming.  
"Robert, please" she says, sits up and pulls him up with her. He knows he is bordering on hysterical but he has had that dream for weeks now and at some point he hadn't been sure what had been a dream and what been real life anymore, but now he is sure that this real life.  
"You are alive."  
"Yes."

She supposes that he dreamed that she had died of the Spanish flu. She has had that suspicion for quite some time now, Robert was there when Lavinia died and Mary has told her how horrible that scene was and how afraid her father had looked, how it had been obvious to everyone in the room that he kept thinking that he didn't want the same to happen to her.  
"You keep dreaming that I died." He looks at her unsurely. "Robert, darling, please tell me. Remember that when you returned from South Africa, your nightmares only became better after you had talked about them to me."  
"Yes. I keep dreaming that you didn't live." Finally he is opening up to her.  
"But there is more to it, isn't there?" He looks at her, takes a deep breath and then says "In those dreams I am married to someone else."  
"To Jane."  
"Yes." There are tears running down his face now and she gently wipes them away with her thumbs.  
"Robert, I forgave you for kissing her. We both did stupid things during the war but the war is over and done now."  
He looks at her with a tear-streaked face and says "But,". She replies "no but," and kisses him. He kisses her back and finally they do what they usually do when they are upstairs together after lunch. They fall asleep afterward, under the same blanket, skin to skin, holding onto each other, knowing that the war and its aftermath are finally behind them.

He wakes up when he hears the dressing gong and he realizes that he must have slept for hours. Cora is mumbling something into his shoulder and he gently places a kiss on her head. "Wake up darling, it is time to get dressed for dinner." She opens her eyes and looks at him, smiles and then says "You look better."  
"I found sleep again. For the first time since the day you caught Spanish flu, I finally found sleep again."


End file.
